


a lot

by susiecarter



Category: DC Extended Universe
Genre: 5 Times, Coffee, Constructed Reality, Holography, Kryptonite, M/M, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Superbat Week, Superbat Week 2019, Tentacles, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-19 20:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19980202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: Bruce and Clark deal with kryptonite, get a coffee, are undercover, share a bed, face off against some tentacles, have feelings about holograms, and dream together.Or: six times Superbat didn't quite happen, plus the time it finally did. (Written for Superbat Week 2019.)





	1. but even such lit vacancy

**Author's Note:**

> So I actually got it together enough to come up with something for Superbat Week! NO ONE IS MORE SURPRISED THAN ME. :D The plan is one chapter for each of the daily prompts I chose; and I owe special thanks to [RileyC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC) for hand-delivering me the theme to tie all these together, without even intending to. :D ♥
> 
> The main title and each of the chapter titles are all adapted from the poem "[A Lot](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47676/a-lot)" by Scott Cairns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Superbat Week 2019 Day 1 prompt: "kryptonite".

Bruce doesn't bother to take Clark to the medical wing.

What would be the point? It's unnecessary; that area of the Hall of Justice was never designed with Clark's needs in mind. It's on the ground floor, convenient and easy to access, soundproofed and shielded, prepared for use at any hour of the day or night.

He carries Clark upstairs instead.

It's both easier and more difficult than it ought to be. Easier, because Clark has regained consciousness, and is wordlessly, blearily insistent on having his feet on the floor, bearing at least half his own weight, for all that his thighs are trembling; more difficult for precisely the same reason—because right now Clark has the physical coordination of a drunken kitten.

Fortunately, Bruce was prepared for this eventuality; every level of the Hall is accessible in almost any physical condition short of death. The elevator ride is swift and smooth, and it's hardly ten steps from the open doors to reach the right room.

Bruce levers Clark a little more closely against his shoulder and hauls him in, ignoring the soft bewildered sound he makes, and then lowers him down onto the cushioned platform before striding to the wall and entering the required keycode.

The transition is rapid, the material from which three walls and the ceiling are made clearing within seconds from matte off-white to utter transparency. The associated system is, of course, capable of analysis to determine the position of the sun, and align or mirror-surface panels accordingly to maximize illumination; but at this particular moment, it isn't necessary. The sun is high, the sky nearly clear, and the room is flooded with light, no enhancements or adjustments required.

The catch of breath in Clark's throat is audible. Bruce drove here through sunlight, of course, but the Batmobile's frame, the towering heights of Metropolis and Gotham, couldn't help but block it intermittently—Clark wasn't exposed to it like this, full-body, unimpeded.

The worst of the shaking eases, and then stops. Clark's face begins to regain its color; the agonized crumpling of his brow over his closed eyes smooths out. Bruce reaches for his wrist—just to check his pulse, but at the touch Clark turns his hand over, twists it and grasps Bruce's gloved fingers and holds on.

Bruce doesn't pull away.

Five minutes. Ten. Clark's breathing deepens and then slows, and then, at last, he opens his eyes.

He's just gazing blankly up at the glass, the light, at first. And then he blinks and turns his head, finds Bruce, and swallows. "I—sorry," he says, easing his grip on Bruce's hand and then releasing it, twisting away a little as if expecting to be chastised.

"For what," Bruce says.

It's not intended as a question, but rather a statement: there's nothing Clark needs to apologize for.

Clark doesn't seem to take it that way. He bites his lip, absent, and then makes a face—an apprehensive little frown, tentative and unhappy. The kind of face Superman never makes where he can be seen, because despite the uniform, it's Clark who's lying here right now.

"You seem," he says, and then stops, and then starts again. "Angry."

Bruce takes a split-second self-inventory, and discovers with a sense of distant interest that Clark isn't wrong. His jaw is so tight his teeth are aching; the hand that wasn't enclosed in Clark's a moment ago has formed a fist, and Bruce can't say for certain how long it's been clenched that way. The tension across his shoulders, through his back, is an oddly satisfying sensation: he feels braced, prepared to do damage, ready to exorcise the simmering curdling frustration within him.

"I know it was stupid," Clark is saying. "I shouldn't have fallen for a trap like that, and I shouldn't have let them—"

Ah. Clark thinks Bruce is angry with _him_.

"No," Bruce says.

Clark gives him an eloquent look of bewilderment.

"You shouldn't have needed to avoid a trap like that," Bruce elaborates, flat. "It shouldn't have been possible for them to set one."

He'd secured all the kryptonite Luthor had turned up. Or—he thought he had. He must have missed something; another stash, another complex of secret labs somewhere? Or had Luthor deliberately distributed it, wanting to be sure there would always be more out there, even once he was in prison? What had come in on the _White Portuguese_ had been the largest single piece, yes, but Luthor had had contingencies in place—and Bruce had thought he'd managed to deal with them.

As if that means anything. As if Clark is safer with the stuff in _Bruce's_ hands—

"Hey," Clark says.

Bruce looks up.

Clark is watching him, cautious, assessing; he's pushed himself up on his elbows, his hands, and he's lost that inward-looking expression he gets when he's experiencing the still-unfamiliar sensation of pain. Sunlight is still streaming down on them both, of course, and Clark's skin, his eyes, have acquired that faintly unearthly inner light that means all that radiant energy is doing its job.

"It's not your fault."

Bruce bites down on a bark of a laugh, harsher than he ought to aim at Clark when Clark's still recovering. "Of course it is," he says instead, flat, uncompromising.

"Bruce—"

"It was the _least_ I could do," Bruce adds, and doesn't let himself look down or away, enunciates and inflects each word with precision.

 _It_. He doesn't define what that convenient pronoun refers to, but then he doesn't need to; Clark's already caught up with him and then some. _It's not your fault._ They still misunderstand each other more often than not—but Clark has begun to develop a certain unsettling sense of intuition where Bruce is concerned, has proven increasingly capable of guessing what Bruce is thinking unaided and unprompted.

Bruce is fairly certain he hasn't secretly developed telepathy. Maybe it's the speed; all Bruce's hard-won control of himself is functionally worthless if Superman is capable of perceiving involuntary microexpressions.

"Bruce," Clark says again, and his brow dips, his mouth pressing into a firm determined line—and then he reaches out, steady but slow enough to avoid. Bruce doesn't move, and Clark's hand closes around his wrist, thumb rubbing in an absent soothing sweep along the gloved heel of Bruce's hand. "You've done more than enough, you've—you left 'least' so far behind you you'd need a telescope to see it from where you are." He pauses, and his mouth slants, soft and inviting, amused. "Sometimes I'm not even sure you know what that word means." And then he clears his throat. "I don't think I've ever thanked you for that. It means a lot to me to know that so much of it is in safe hands—"

Bruce does look away then, unable to prevent his jaw from tensing. " _None_ of it is in safe hands."

A long stretched beat of silence. He can imagine how Clark's brow is probably furrowing; because of course Clark doesn't see it that way, always so unbearably goddamn generous—

"I couldn't ask for safer," Clark murmurs.

He still hasn't let go of Bruce. Hasn't let go, and a moment later moves—reaches with his other hand, too, and catches the underside of Bruce's chin with two knuckles, turns Bruce's face; asking Bruce to look at him again, and if Bruce had been under any illusion that he'd retained the capacity to refuse Clark anything since he came back to life, it's fast deserting him.

Their eyes meet.

"I trust you," Clark says, soft but steady, certain, blazing with light.

Bruce looks at him. Clark's still touching his face; he's intolerably attractive under every set of circumstances Bruce has ever experienced, but like this, in the sun, close and intent and saying things he's stupid enough to mean—god. Bruce _wishes_ he were still coldly horrified by the thought of Clark's hands on him, that the disaster of Superman's touch still frightened him.

(—except even then, he'd thought about it too much, imagined it with such intensity and clarity; had never quite been able to shake it, had walked around all day and night with the ember of it burning in the back of his mind: the certainty that sooner or later it would happen, the _anticipation_ —)

He keeps his eyes on Clark's, doesn't let himself look at Clark's mouth. He could—he could do more than that; Clark probably wouldn't even hurt him for it, not intentionally.

But Clark deserves—safe hands. And even if he believes Bruce qualifies, Bruce knows better.

"I'll take care of it," he says instead, and eases away; not harshly, not even half a stride—disengaging, that's all.

And Clark takes the cue, as Bruce has begun to trust he will. His hands are left suspended between them for only a moment before he draws them away, settles back into his seat.

"Stay here," Bruce adds. "At least half an hour of full exposure."

"All right," Clark says softly.

Bruce leaves.


	2. after a long day's drive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Superbat Week 2019 Day 2 prompt: "drinking a coffee". (I used [this panel](https://66.media.tumblr.com/8d277f0960541b9f89b67eacd701339d/tumblr_inline_pilxxgaHyJ1svmpxj_500.jpg) as a reference upon which to base Bruce's coffee order, because how could I not. :D)

"You don't actually need to buy me a coffee, you know," Clark says.

"Well, I wouldn't want you to feel your time's been _entirely_ wasted," Bruce murmurs, light. He flicks Clark a sharp, amused little sidelong glance, and all at once Clark has to bite down on a grin—not that it wasn't funny already, but somehow it's ten times funnier with Bruce looking at him like that: the joke deliberately shared, in on it together.

And then Bruce turns to the barista, smiles Bruce Wayne's blithest smile, and delivers one of the most horrifying coffee orders Clark has ever heard without a hitch.

Clark can't help but grimace apologetically at the woman behind the counter, and when he tacks his own order onto the end, he doesn't think he's imagining the relief in her eyes when it's just a plain old mocha.

"145 degrees," he says, eyebrows raised, as he follows Bruce over to a table for two. "Really."

"I tip very well," Bruce says mildly, pokerfaced. "And made properly, it's actually quite good."

"Sure." Clark eyes him. "Quite good—but that doesn't mean you _like_ it."

Not that Bruce hates it either, probably. He considers himself too practical to indulge in petty dislike, Clark knows. He saves hatred for things that matter, things a lot bigger than coffee.

He hated Clark, once. But he doesn't waste time hating peaberry lattes with cinnamon and butterscotch.

It's almost a compliment, when Clark thinks about it like that.

Bruce arches an eyebrow. "I wasn't under the impression the Daily Planet was interested in my coffee order, Mr. Kent."

Clark grins at him, helpless, and shakes his head. "No, Mr. Wayne, I won't be including that in my notes for my editor."

He's supposed to be talking to Bruce about a new Wayne Enterprises project in Metropolis. Or, well, no—he's supposed to be talking to _someone_. He's not even sure exactly how Bruce found out he was assigned to the story. But suddenly he'd found himself getting escorted directly to Bruce's office in the Wayne Enterprises tower, shaking hands with Bruce over his desk, staring at the startling curve of Bruce's mouth.

They're friends, mostly. They've begun, cautiously, to experiment with the thrilling uncertainty of getting along with each other. Clark's learned to rely on Batman's assessments in the field, to listen carefully to Bruce's briefings in League meetings; and they talk other times, times when it's not business, when they don't even need to. They've seen each other exhausted, injured, bloody and sooty and head-to-toe in mud. Bruce has saved Clark more than once; Clark trusts him, and has even managed to string together the words to tell him so.

But Bruce still doesn't—smile very much, in Clark's experience.

Bruce Wayne, though? Bruce Wayne smiles all the time. Sometimes the same way he'd smiled at Clark that once, at Luthor's fundraiser: all edges, sharp enough to cut, not really a smile at all.

But it turns out that's not the only kind of smile he's got—and it's cover, Clark knows that; it's part of the persona.

Doesn't make it any less striking, though. Sometimes Clark thinks he could watch Bruce's face for hours and not get bored; there's something so _expressive_ about it, endless subtle shades and variations—and the way he controls it, waits a perfect precise beat to raise his eyes, slants the line of his mouth just so.

Clark looks—a little too long, probably. But there's so much to see, and he doesn't want to miss a moment of it.

Their coffee arrives. Bruce asks studiously whether Clark's ever had a chance to try the peaberry latte, and Clark starts laughing before he's even finished the question, helpless.

"Yeah, that's—that's half my salary, peaberry lattes. Rent and peaberry lattes, with enough left over to pay my library fines."

Bruce's eyebrows leap. "You have library fines? A responsible young man like you? I'm shocked, Mr. Kent," he murmurs, and the tone of his voice is as warm to Clark's ears as the first sip of mocha is on Clark's tongue. " _Shocked_."

He nudges his latte toward Clark's side of the table.

"If you're trying to horrify me, it's not going to work," Clark informs him. "I love sugar."

The cocoa in Clark's mocha probably isn't dark enough to suit Bruce's actual tastes, as best Clark has been able to guess at them. But—yeah, Clark thinks, rolling a mouthful of the latte over his tongue. Bruce is probably better off with it than with the butterscotch.

He completes the trade, pushing his mocha toward Bruce, and keeps the latte for himself. It's the kind of simple pleasure he never gets tired of: his sense of taste is as enhanced as anything else, when he allows it to be. If he isn't careful, focusing too much on any one flavor can make even things he likes taste disgusting—but as it happens, Bruce's ridiculous latte has just enough competing notes that it's easy to balance the butterscotch with the cinnamon, the sweet plain milk and the complex bitterness of the coffee.

And he does love sugar.

They don't actually need to talk about the Wayne Enterprises project. Bruce already arranged to send him Bruce's own notes on it, and Clark's not going to have any trouble inventing a few choice quotes he can attribute to Bruce Wayne.

(He'd been a little nervous about the idea at first, when Bruce had suggested it. Bruce had just raised an eyebrow. "I assure you, you can't make me sound stupider than I can make me sound, Mr. Kent," he'd said, voice lowered, pointed. "But I'm happy to dare you to try.")

But if Clark shows up back at the office after less than an hour, Perry's going to be suspicious.

So they—have coffee.

It seems like a waste of Bruce's time, to Clark. But Bruce doesn't seem convinced, when Clark tries to point it out.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Wouldn't want you getting yourself fired, Mr. Kent."

Clark concedes the point with a duck of his head, pushing his glasses absently up his nose. It's a good thing, he thinks wryly, that it makes sense for small-town boy Clark Kent to be flustered, sitting down for coffee with somebody like Bruce Wayne.

He'd have no explanation for it, otherwise. Or at least not one he could offer to Bruce. As it is, he'll just have to hope Bruce doesn't realize he's never been a particularly good actor.

It's good coffee. It's good to sit there and drink it. It's good to sit there and drink it with Bruce; for all the time they spend running around together saving the greater Metropolis-Gotham metro area from disasters of various kinds, they really don't get to just—sit in a coffee shop in the city in the afternoon sunlight very often.

And of all Bruce's faces, Bruce Wayne's the one Clark's probably spent the least time with. It's fascinating to watch, Bruce casual and engaging, glib and funny and even kind of flirtatious. A cover, Clark reminds himself, a cover; but it's still Bruce across from him, Bruce's hands and face and voice, and surely it isn't _all_ feigned. Surely Bruce is enjoying this too, at least a little bit.

And Clark can admit, if only to himself, that there's something he's always liked a little too much about having Bruce's undivided attention.

He usually tries not to think about it too much. He tries not to think about why.

But like this—today, right now—it doesn't hurt. Or it does, but not in a bad way. He sits there with Bruce's coffee in his hands, watching Bruce express five more of Bruce Wayne's astonishingly bad opinions with Batman's precision and attention to detail; and he finds himself almost savoring the ache in his chest—the soft wistful feeling flooding him, slow as high tide.

"Well, I think that should be enough to satisfy even Perry White."

"Hm?" Clark says, absent, and then blinks and looks at the watch Bruce is tapping meaningfully. "Oh, I—yes, of course. Thank you so much, Mr. Wayne."

"Certainly," Bruce agrees mildly; and then his mouth twists a little, sardonic. "I imagine the pleasure was entirely mine."

"No," Clark says, and he didn't exactly mean to put his hand over Bruce's on the edge of the table, but he finds he doesn't regret it either. "No, I'm glad you asked. Mr. Wayne," he adds, and he hopes Bruce sees it as the half-hearted nod to the pretense that permitted this that it is—a cover for the rest of the sentence, the part Clark wouldn't be saying if he didn't mean it.

Bruce goes still.

"I'm glad we were able to meet this way," Clark repeats, firm, without looking away. "I—"

He knows what he wants to say. But he—he can't. Even in a universe where Bruce might plausibly want to hear it, it's not exactly a good time for it.

"I hope it won't be the last time," he makes himself say instead, more quietly.

And Bruce looks at him, silent, and then turns his hand beneath Clark's; clasps Clark's fingers. Quick, tense, the barest instant before he draws away and stands.

"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Kent," he says, and his tone's just a little too soft for Bruce Wayne. "Enjoy the rest of your day."

And Clark can't help but smile. "Oh, I will," he says, and lifts what's left of the cooling latte demonstratively. "I've got my peaberry half-caf/decaf, after all."

The flicker of Bruce's mouth then is real, Clark's almost sure of it. And after everything—that they've gotten to the point where they can have a coffee together and smile at each other—

He's grateful for it. It's enough.

It has to be enough.


	3. dwells luxuriously in potential

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Superbat Week 2019 Day 3 prompt: "undercover". For kind of a loose definition of undercover. ;D The Iceberg Lounge is borrowed from other DC media; it's run by the Penguin, and for my purposes here let's say Bruce has started to suspect as much and is investigating it.

The music is too loud.

Bruce should be concentrating on the mission, on observation; there's frustratingly little he can do here, of course, but even more frustrating is the simple truth that Batman could have done even less. Bruce Wayne is a legitimately plausible patron of the Iceberg Lounge; the Gotham Bat, not so much.

He's playing the part well enough. Bruce Wayne's loosened his tie, unbuttoned his top three buttons; is lounging back against the dark buttery leather of the circular sectional he's claimed for his own private use with a lopsided and satisfied smile.

But there's a headache lurking behind his temples, tightening up the slope of his shoulders. And he keeps catching himself thinking—the music is too loud.

If it's enough to bother him, of course, it must be at least six times as bad for Clark. Who didn't have to agree to help with this, but did it anyway, and the absolute least Bruce can do is run interference properly.

He has half a dozen men and women about ten years too young for him arranged neatly alongside him within about forty minutes; one of them helpfully spills a cocktail all over Bruce's lap, which means he smells like he's drunk twice as much as he actually has. He flirts, doubles genuinely sly innuendoes with blatantly inappropriate and clumsily-delivered lines anyone with taste would be ashamed of. Another time he might have paired them with equally inappropriate physical contact, but it's—not necessary tonight. It's enough to lean in a little too close, to breathe muddled but undeniably obscene things into a fall of hair or an ear his mouth is practically touching; it's enough to not move out from under the hands that find his thighs, the fingers curling coyly around the nape of his neck.

He's got a woman in his lap, arms resting on his shoulders, laughing at a weak joke that doesn't deserve the effort, when he spots Clark. Determinedly making his way across the dance floor, toward the raised alcove Bruce has reserved—very carefully ignoring the bodies moving against him as he does it, and absently pushing his glasses up his nose.

Bruce experiences a stab of something that would be more comfortable if it were only fondness; the slant of his mouth alters without permission. Clark is just so thoroughly himself, even here. So often, Bruce feels as though the haze of desperation in places like this, the—the strain of cheap grimy decadence so particular to Gotham, has soaked into him so deep he'll never escape it. But it doesn't touch Clark. It never has; and suffocating as the weight of pretense has sometimes felt to Bruce in the past, it's impossible to founder beneath it when Clark is right there alongside him—when he is, astoundingly and unexpectedly, not alone anymore.

Clark is about to climb the broad steps leading up toward Bruce's little private party. They'd discussed this in advance; Bruce had warned him that some offputting contingencies might be necessary in order to make their shared cover for the evening stick. Clark hadn't seemed troubled by the idea, and at the time Bruce hadn't felt inclined to push it.

(Perhaps Clark still hasn't stopped perceiving him as—trustworthy. Safe hands.

And perhaps Bruce enjoys that thought a little too much.)

If Clark does have a line he's not interested in letting Bruce cross—they're about to identify it.

Bruce Wayne had blithely accepted the Iceberg Lounge's internal security as a means of keeping the riff-raff away; so a bulky-armed man in a dark suit stops Clark with a hand on his shoulder well before he can reach Bruce. Bruce, of course, ignores it, smiling blissfully up at the woman in his lap, sinking back lazily into the couch beneath her and rubbing absent arcs across her thighs with his thumbs—until the disturbance happens to catch his attention. "Oh, who's this?"

"What's it matter?" the woman asks, trailing two fingertips idly down into the open V of Bruce's shirt.

"Mm, might be important, sweetheart," Bruce chides, drunkenly patronizing to a degree calculated to make her scoff before he tips her sideways off his lap and finds his feet.

A little stumble, that's all. Bruce Wayne drinks a lot, has practice navigating parties while smashed—wouldn't be _too_ badly impaired by the amount he has putatively drunk tonight.

He interrupts a discussion that's just on the edge of becoming heated, lowered voices starting to rise, by swaying in between Clark and the looming security guy. "Problem here, gentlemen?"

"He's a reporter, Mr. Wayne," the security guy duly explains, gruff and unforgiving.

But Bruce has already allowed his eyes to trail Clark head to toe, up and down and back up again—sways in further still, and wets his lips, and says, "Well, can't say I'd mind reporters one bit, if they all looked like this. And I do believe we've been introduced before. Mr—Kent, wasn't it?"

"Uh, yes, Mr. Wayne," Clark says, and clears his throat. "If I could have just a moment of your time—"

"Oh, you can have more than that," Bruce tells him, tone one of profound and distinctly inebriated sincerity; and then he catches Clark by one lapel of his ridiculous plaid button-down, aims Bruce Wayne's most charming leer in the direction of the security guy and winks, and hauls Clark up the steps with him.

"Um, I. Mr. Wayne, I don't mean to—"

Bruce tugs him a few more steps, into a no-man's-land: clearly within the bounds of Bruce Wayne's staked-out territory, but still half a dozen strides from the sectional, well out of earshot of the drunken pile of lovely people on top of it as long as their voices are lowered. And then he turns toward Clark, into the solid steady wall of his body, and hooks an arm around Clark's shoulders—leans in and curves his free hand around Clark's waist, and lets his lips brush the line of Clark's cheek as he says, in a soft sultry sort of way, "Sorry, Clark, just bear with me for a minute. Tell me what you found out."

Clark hesitates—swallows; it's not audible, not beneath the pound of the goddamn music, but Bruce only has to ease back a little bit to see his throat move. Bruce—shouldn't be watching his throat move.

(He hasn't drunk as much as Bruce Wayne has, tonight. But maybe he's still had a little more than he should have.)

And then he sets a hand against Bruce's chest. Good decision, Bruce thinks; constructing a narrative, holding Bruce Wayne off as he tries to make a point. Except Bruce unbuttoned three buttons, and Clark's hand is—with his palm flat against Bruce's sternum, his fingertips extend into the dip of the open shirt, settle against the skin of Bruce's chest.

He doesn't move them.

"I don't know if it's enough," Clark is saying, and Bruce forces himself to concentrate, sets aside the sensation of Clark against him, Clark's solid steady warmth beneath his hands. Superman's memory is essentially flawless; Clark is able to relay the gist of several conversations held somewhere in the back rooms of the Iceberg Lounge that point exactly where Bruce expected them to, and no doubt he'll be able to reconstruct what he heard into a near-perfect transcript once they're out of here and back in front of Bruce's files.

But there's a little more work to do first.

"It's enough," Bruce breathes into Clark's ear, and then laughs, half into the unreasonable bulk of Clark's shoulder, low and throaty. As if, perhaps, Clark Kent has registered an objection to Bruce Wayne's wildly inappropriate behavior that Bruce finds deeply amusing. "Thank you, Clark," he adds, softer still. And then he raises one hand higher and the other lower: skims his fingers from the nape of Clark's neck up into his hair, and at the same time drops his other hand from Clark's waist to his belt. "Now punch me."

Clark startled a little with the movement, but that's all; and now he goes still. His hand hasn't moved. It feels like a fucking brand on Bruce's chest.

(—if only it were one; if only Clark were as inclined to leave his mark on what he's touched as Bruce had once been, and fuck, he _did_ let himself drink too much, he shouldn't be thinking _any_ of this—)

It's an obvious choice. The best way for Clark to extract himself from this situation, from the Iceberg Lounge in general: an unceremonious rejection of whatever obscene bullshit Bruce Wayne just whispered into his ear, his reputation intact and unsullied. Perfectly reasonable reaction, and a cover that won't force Clark to do anything he wouldn't otherwise be inclined to do.

(He's punched Bruce plenty of times, every one of them earned and justly deserved.)

"Bruce—"

"Punch me," Bruce repeats, low and sweet and coaxing. "Though if you could pull it a little, I'd appreciate it."

He draws back just a little, to give Clark an opening for it; tilts his head and smiles, packs the look full of dirty promises.

But of all the things he hadn't prepared for—under the sharp strobing lights of the club, a flicker of unmistakable stubbornness crosses Clark's face, the dip of the brow that always precedes his unwarranted refusal to just fucking do what Bruce tells him, in Bruce's experience.

"There's got to be another option," he murmurs.

"Clark," Bruce bites out, but too slow.

Clark's brow draws down further; he still hasn't moved away, still isn't prepped to take a swing. He swallows, and his gaze jumps back and forth across Bruce's face. "Take me in the back," he says, soft and steady, and then he's—his hand skims up, his thumb at the base of Bruce's throat, and he leans in, and they're kissing.

Bruce tries to think it through, tries to take control of the scenario. It's astonishingly difficult. Clark's mouth is—

"I'm not trying to screw this up for you," Clark says against Bruce's jaw, when it's over. "But I'm not hitting you. All right? I don't—I don't want to hit you. If you think I'd rather hit you than—" He stops, and shakes his head. His hand is on Bruce's face—when did his hand get on Bruce's face? He thumbs Bruce's cheek, slides his fingertips into Bruce's hair. "Take me in the back. I'll—I can sneak out from there."

Bruce bites his tongue, the inside of his cheek; exerts himself desperately, forcing his useless idiot head to clear. Clark is—too close. He's always had trouble doing anything but reacting, mindless and animal, when Clark is close to him. It just isn't out of fear, these days.

"Come on," Clark whispers, and moves—moves _into_ Bruce's hands. "Come on, take me in the back," and then he kisses Bruce again.

There are back rooms in the Iceberg Lounge. Of course there are. Ostensibly they're for private meetings, exclusive parties; unofficially, everyone knows the sorts of things that go on in them. Clark is absolutely going to be able to exit the building from there. It's tactically sound.

But there's something that isn't tactical in the least about the way it feels, to drag Clark toward the entrance to the back hallway and have Clark _let_ him, to grip Clark by the belt and pull and feel Clark's hips follow his hand; Clark's unsteady breath in his ears, finally drowning out the fucking music for all that the volume is as bone-shaking as it's ever been. Clark's _mouth_ —the way Clark opens up for him, takes everything Bruce gives him like he's desperate for it—

Not like this, Bruce tells himself. Even if he isn't as drunk as he feels, isn't reading too much into Clark's responsiveness, isn't incapacitated by the most debilitating case of wishful thinking he's ever been afflicted by—even if it's starting to feel distinctly possible that Clark would—that Clark might—

Not like this; and when they stumble through a door together, press themselves into a corner, Bruce carefully and precisely peels his hands off Clark, catches his breath and digs his nails into his palms and gets a goddamn grip. Clark looks at him silently for a moment, eyes huge and dark behind his fucking glasses—and then a rush of air and he's gone, far too fast to see.

(How excruciatingly appropriate: Bruce never feels more than the blink of an eye from losing him again. And for a moment, standing there in the dark alone with his heart pounding, Bruce almost wishes Clark had just fucking punched him after all.)


	4. and i like a little space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Superbat Week 2019 Day 4 prompt: "bed sharing". ... Except I cheated and made it also huddling for warmth, because I'm cheap and predictable and never met a trope I wouldn't use half to death. ;D

The third moon of what the Lanterns' systems appear to designate Lintaarvi 8 is essentially a chunk of ice with just barely enough mass to retain a thin atmosphere. Not exactly an intergalactic resort—but definitely a better option than any of Lintaarvi 8's other satellites, which are mostly hurtling space-rocks with no atmosphere at all.

And the traces the sensors of Clark's borrowed ship have detected point straight to it.

He can't be sure they were left by a lifepod; he can't be sure the lifepod was Bruce's. But there's no way Bruce _wouldn't_ have tried to escape from his captors, and if he'd tried—it's impossible for Clark to imagine he wouldn't have succeeded.

Clark doesn't bother with a pod of his own, a transport module or a shuttlecraft. He leaves the bridge and walks into the nearest airlock, cycles it from the inside—god, he could have just ripped a hole in the hull, could be out there right now, except who knows what kind of condition Bruce is in? Clark needs somewhere pressurized to take him _back_ to, once he's found him, and if he ruptures the ship the Green Lanterns have so kindly lent him, he'll screw up this rescue attempt before it's even started.

And he's going to find Bruce. He _has_ to. There's no other way this can be allowed to end.

So he bites the inside of his cheek, counts backward from a hundred. Waits, carefully patient, for the longest goddamn airlock flushing cycle in the history of the galaxy—and once the exterior hatch finally opens for him, he doesn't waste another moment.

There's something freeing about speeding his way through vacuum, utterly unencumbered by friction. He knows the real reason everything feels so frozen and silent around him is just because of where he is—because it doesn't matter how sensitive your hearing might be, if you're in a void sound can't travel through. But it's like everything's holding its breath. Like the whole universe knows exactly how important this is.

The plunge down through atmosphere is hardly any more difficult; even thin as it is, he feels the heat of passing through it so fast, but it's nothing his suit can't handle.

When he finds the crashed pod in the ice, it's half-buried, the alien metal visibly deformed. Everything blurs around him, disorienting, and then he's—he finds himself on his knees on the ice, hands pressed to the surface of it.

Bruce is inside it, and his heart is beating.

Clark wavers, crumples, digs his fingers into the side of the pod. He wants to wrench it open, to tear it apart and lift Bruce out of it. But he shouldn't. Should he? He's—he doesn't have any other way to get Bruce back to the ship. He'd just have to put Bruce back inside and seal it up again, when he was done indulging his stupid fucking feelings.

It's so cold. His face is wet. He gulps for air, and he doesn't even need it but somehow there still isn't enough.

Come on, think. _Think_. The pod was damaged on impact. He needs to make sure it's at least closed, airtight, before he drags Bruce into space inside of it. And it doesn't matter if none of its internal controls are functioning, if he destroys whatever systems would otherwise be required to make it open. He can rip it apart with his bare hands, once he's got Bruce back on the ship.

He just needs to get Bruce back on the ship.

So he drags the pod out of the ice, blinks his eyes blazing red and welds it shut, everywhere the metal twisted or warped—presses the sides of white-hot gaps back together with his fingers, seals it carefully up.

Bruce is still breathing. Clark can hear it.

But space—space makes it stop. Clark panics for a single endless split second, and then realizes dimly that it might—it might just be the sound, that he can't hear the sound rather than that it isn't there; the silence doesn't mean Bruce is gone. He hangs there and presses his ear to the pod, and maybe it's his imagination, maybe it's his own pulse, but he hears something. He must hear something. It can't end like this.

He drags the damaged pod into an airlock and waits through the repressurization cycle with his heart in his throat, his chest aching, his hands trembling.

And then, finally, it's safe to tear the goddamn thing apart in a screech of metal, and lift Bruce out of it.

Jesus, he looks like shit. He's still in his undersuit, which is crusted with frost, but whoever had him, they must have—must have pried the Batsuit off him, taken the cowl from him. He's pale, and cold, and his eyes are closed; there are blue shadows, bruises forming, along one side of his face, probably all over underneath the undersuit. The impact of the crash, maybe.

There's blood, too, but a lot less than Clark had feared. Just the one trickle, really, persistent but not severe, working its way out of Bruce's hair. Head injuries are bad news, obviously, but Clark happens to be capable of just about every kind of preliminary medical exam worth running: he looks, and sees the cut, the scrape, the pulse and swell of capillaries.

But there isn't any bleeding in Bruce's brain. However bad the landing was, it didn't break his neck, his spine. It didn't break anything, in fact, though a couple of ribs look cracked—on the same side as the bruising on his face, which means it probably _was_ the crash, and not that he'd been beaten.

And whatever atmosphere the pod had contained, it hadn't suffocated him. But that moon, its atmosphere—god, Clark breathed it, but that doesn't mean anything. And the cold, he's—Bruce is too cold. That's the thing that's likeliest to kill him, right now.

Clark doesn't even know where crew quarters might be located, on this ship; he hadn't wasted time that could have been spent looking for Bruce on sleep he didn't need anyway. He lifts Bruce into his arms and strides out of the airlock, leaves the wreckage of the pod behind, and he's already looking through all the walls and corridors, the hull. There, that over there—that looks like a bed. Close enough, anyway.

He's got to get Bruce out of the undersuit, and he's got to warm him up.

The ship's interface lets him raise the interior temperature, after a little poking and prodding. He tears apart what might have been some kind of desk, too, into twisted metal scraps he can glare red-hot, until they're radiating warmth. But he's not going to just leave Bruce lying in here alone and wander off twiddling his thumbs. Cold has never affected Clark, and he basically runs on sunshine; he's got heat to spare.

He might have expected, in a dim distant corner of his mind, to feel self-conscious about it—stripping Bruce down, easing that long strong body into some huge squishy alien bed knowing he's going to join it in a minute. But Bruce is so goddamn cold, and it turns out there's just no room in Clark's head for any of it, for anything but Bruce's pallor, his closed eyes, the low too-slow sound of his heart.

Clark's uniform is thin, skin-tight, and transfers heat just as well as sensation. He almost takes it off anyway, conscious of a helpless wordless desire to—to _feel_ Bruce against him so completely, to have that bone-deep reassurance that Bruce hasn't gone anywhere Clark can't find him; but then it occurs to him that it might be able to help. He presses a hand flat to the material, over the chest where the pattern of the crest of El is picked out of all those neat gleaming tessellations, and thinks about what he needs. And maybe it's his imagination, but after a couple seconds it—it feels warmer, subtly radiant, as though he's standing in sunshine.

So he bites his lip and leaves it on, and gathers Bruce carefully toward him.

It's disturbing, at first. Not even the chilliness of Bruce's skin, so much as the _slackness_ of him, his utter unconsciousness. The few rare times Clark's seen him asleep, it's hardly mattered—he's still tense, ready, mind working furiously even in his dreams.

But Clark holds him there, curls close around him; _wills_ the warmth of himself to soak into Bruce, inexorable as summer in Kansas. He presses his hands to Bruce's face, curves them around the bulk of Bruce's shoulders, cups them around the soft vulnerable nape of Bruce's neck. He holds on, and he prays, and he waits.

And gradually, a bit at a time, Bruce thaws.

Clark hears it, first: the rush of blood in him picking up, not so sluggish anymore, circulation grudgingly improving. His heartbeat, his breathing, pick up a little too—not too much, he isn't arrhymthic or hyperventilating. Just to a more normal resting rate for someone in Bruce's physical condition, instead of the torpor they'd been mired in. The bluish undertone to his lips, his fingertips, recedes, and is replaced by the barest tint of something that might, in a spirit of charity and generosity, be called a flush.

And then, at last, he starts to shake.

Clark breathes a helpless sigh of relief—because that's good, that's fantastic. It's bad, bad news when you're so cold you don't shiver anymore. Not that it feels much better, to listen to Bruce's teeth rattling in his head, to feel him shuddering like this. But Clark hangs on, because the air is close and stuffy, sauna-hot, and his suit's still radiating sourceless warmth, and surely, surely, it won't last long.

And then Bruce cracks an eye open, and swallows, and slurs out, "Clark."

"Yeah, yes," Clark says instantly, "it's me, it's me," and scrubs a hand up into his hair, cradles his stupid head with mindless tenderness. God, he feels like he's the one who's about to shake apart. "It's me. You're okay. All right? I found you."

He's expecting Bruce to acknowledge it, and then—well. Ease away, probably, at least once he's got the motor control for it. Like a test, Clark thinks wryly, a Bruce-specific idiopathic medical evaluation. If he's capable of enforcing a distance between you, he's not dead yet.

But Bruce doesn't move. He's got his face turned in against Clark's shoulder now; Clark can't tell whether his eyes are open or closed, can't see his expression.

"I knew you would," Bruce says at last—scraped out against Clark's collarbone, so hoarse it hurts to listen to.

And he lies there, tucked as close as he can get under Clark's hands. Sighs, a long unsteady breath, and doesn't go anywhere.

It's an illusion. Of course it is. Clark isn't—Clark isn't going to get to keep him. But it soothes something tight and knotted-up in Clark's chest anyway, to hold Bruce so close and have Bruce let him do it.

He doesn't move either. He doesn't do anything. He's just grateful; and he falls asleep like that, wrapped around Bruce, Bruce wrapped around him, pressing his lips to Bruce's forehead and thinking dimly about how lucky he already is—how foolish it seems, to even think to ask for more than this.


	5. which may never be much of a garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Superbat Week 2019 Day 5 prompt: "tentacles". (... Not the sexy kind. SORRY.)

Bruce hadn't been—happier, before the formation of the League. He had not found greater personal satisfaction in the near-perfect solitude that had defined him after Dick had—after Dick. His life had not been easier.

But it _had_ involved fewer sea monsters.

According to Arthur, the thing occupying the bay between Metropolis and Gotham right now is known only by a name that sounds like whalesong when Arthur says it and makes Arthur grimace eloquently at every attempt to speak it made by anyone else (except Diana, who can also render it perfectly). It's a legendary foe of the Karathen—and had slept while she was bound in guardianship of the Ocean Master's trident, but woke when Arthur claimed it for his own and freed her.

"Yeah, whatever," Barry says. "That is a giant fucking kraken, you _released the kraken_ , I'm no Liam Neeson but you get the point—"

"And you can't talk to it," Bruce interrupts.

Arthur makes a face that would be apologetic on anybody else; on Arthur, it comes across more as tacit acknowledgment that probably no one wants to hear what he's about to say, but he's going to say it anyway. "I can. It's just—" He angles a squinting glance up at the massive coiling tentacles extending from beneath the surface of the bay, and appears to choose his words with great care: "—not real interested in listening right this second."

Bruce is conscious of what he brings to the table, in terms of his contributions to the League as a team. He has a great many skills, and multiple areas of more abstract competence that are nevertheless useful in many of the situations they've found themselves faced with.

But when it comes to fighting giant sea monsters, next to a selection of individuals running the gamut from "not bound by the restrictions of physics" to "god", he is equally conscious of his own relatively limited utility.

He is, therefore, fully intending to leave the actual _fighting_ to those capable of landing meaningful blows against something that size. He'll provide tactical support over comms, patrol for civilians who've failed to evacuate the waterfront.

It's a perfectly reasonable plan of action, right up until the first tentacle grabs him.

It isn't deliberate. The kraken probably doesn't even notice what it's done. He hears the shriek first, a terrible earsplitting noise—probably more of a roar, underwater, but above water it's painfully shrill, unbearable, a mindnumbing wall of sound. He forces himself to keep moving along the waterfront, maintaining a steady pace as he grapples from building to building, checking for movement—

And then abruptly there's nothing but. The world is shaken around him, he doesn't know what's happening; he's disoriented, grip lost. Falling, he thinks, in a brief lucid spasm of comprehension. And then he lands on something wet and unsettlingly smooth, something that feels like flesh and smells of sea. It curls immediately, spasmodically, around him—in pain. Whatever struck it hurt it, and it moved, flailed half a dozen tentacles into a swipe along the waterfront.

Brought the building down, he realizes belatedly, and now it's gathering itself and withdrawing, regrouping.

He centers himself, reaches for the cold steady calm that's always there within him, as much a part of his standard equipment as any of Batman's gear. The tentacle that has him is one of the thinner ones—lucky, or he'd already be suffocating against the bulk of it, since it would have covered his face. As it is, it's wrapped around him only once, and has gripped him from chest to shin; grappling, squeezing, pressing the breath from his chest without effort. And the bay, the speed with which it's lifting and moving him—he has perhaps eight seconds at the outside to free himself before he's in the water.

It's not going to be enough.

He grasps the truth of it, and spends his remaining seven seconds concentrating on his breathing: pushing back against the tentacle's grasp, the weird fleshy ridges of its suckers on the underside, to give himself even a fraction of an inch of additional space into which his ribs can expand. A quick, deep breath in, a full exhale, the inhale he's going to have to hold—not as extensive a breathe-up as he'd prefer to perform, but under the circumstances, it will have to suffice—

And then he's under. The plunge is a split-second shock of cold, before the tentacle is dragging him down with remarkable speed. Under optimal conditions, Bruce can hold his breath and remain functional for at least five minutes; but these—he winces, helpless, as the tentacle tightens around him briefly, the pressure on his ribs sharpening to "excruciating" and then subsiding—are not optimal conditions.

He gives himself a soft deadline of two minutes, with a margin of error that might extend as far as a third minute. His arms are pinned to his sides; but his hands are within range of his utility belt.

It's a stroke of luck, in a sense, that the tentacle is as large as it is: the suckers are too big to form seals against the backs of his hands that might have immobilized them. As it is, there's enough give in the slick flesh of the tentacle for him to twist one hand far enough to grasp a batarang.

The experience of slicing into the tentacle's underside, feeling it part beneath the batarang's edge, the softer wetter structures within it contracting away from the injury, is—difficult to set aside. He screws his eyes shut and cuts deeper, writhes deliberately within the tentacle's grasp to refine his estimate of how far will be far enough; cuts deeper—

He was right: underwater, the scream of the kraken is moderated into something best described as a bellow. The tentacle writhes in return, tightens around him more sharply than ever; two more come and wrap around it and him, his body, his legs, his _head_. He can't see, he can't move. _Feeling_ him, he thinks dimly, assessing what it is that has hurt them.

And then something else happens. He doesn't know what, only that the bellow comes again, the tentacles unwrapping themselves from him in a rush, leaving a cloud of dark blood behind. He blinks through it, trying to orient himself, and only then glimpses the lingering flare of what must have been a flash of light, above or closer to the water's surface. Arthur's trident?

It's so far away.

Bruce gathers himself, shoves the batarang back into its place. Kicks hard, once and then again, and doesn't want to acknowledge how little difference it seems to make. The Batsuit was designed for mobility in all sorts of environments, and of course he'd tested it in water; but not like this, not this far down. The weight—but then it probably doesn't matter, at this point. Swimming unburdened, he still wouldn't be fast enough, still wouldn't have enough air left, to make it all the way back up to the dim distant surface. And he'd have to take the time to strip it off—

Something's moving in the water. He considers the relative merits of being crushed to death versus drowning, wry, excruciatingly conscious of the ache in his lungs, the frantic throb of his heart—but it isn't a tentacle.

It's Clark.

(Of course it's Clark. It's always fucking Clark. Every single time Bruce has ever needed him: with Doomsday, five minutes after Bruce tried to kill him; with Steppenwolf, when he'd have had every right to fuck off to the Bahamas with Lois Lane instead and never think about Bruce again. In combat, in nightclubs, in _space_ —Clark just can't seem to stop fucking saving him, every time—)

He ought to look ridiculous. Bruce wishes he looked ridiculous. But whatever his cape is made of, it flows with the same appropriately liquid grace in water as in air; and the gentle gleam of his suit, the dark rippling cloud of his hair, the look on his face—

Bruce's vision darkens at the edges. He forces himself not to thrash, not to struggle. He closes his eyes and drifts there in the water, and applies all that remains of him to one thing: keeping his mouth closed. Refusing, again and again and again, anew each instant, the mindless desperation of his lungs. He cannot open his mouth. Clark is coming for him. He must not open his mouth.

Strong arms grip him. Water whips past him; the speed of their ascent is dizzying. They break the surface with a splash within seconds, and then, briefly disorienting, they just keep going—but Clark has him, clutched tight, and isn't about to drop him back into the bay.

Bruce sucks in air gratefully, too fast, and has to cough half of it back out again. But of course it doesn't matter, there's more; more and more and more, a stunning wealth of it.

"Bruce, jesus," Clark is saying, and then it's—they've slowed, they're coming down on the edge of a rooftop, far enough inland that Bruce can only just see the shifting gleam off tentacles curling through the air if he squints.

"You should go back," Bruce says, the moment Clark has set him down; it comes out harsh, squeezed tight through his aching throat, but comprehensible.

"What? No—look, Arthur's got it," Clark says, and doesn't take his hands off Bruce. He's turned them, moved; he's facing Bruce, eyes wide, startlingly close.

His eyelashes are dripping, Bruce observes dimly.

Clark seems just as—caught, for an instant. He's touching Bruce's face, his jaw, just where the cowl ends, and he swallows once, twice, tense and convulsive, and doesn't look away.

"Bruce—"

"Go," Bruce makes himself say.

Clark goes still, and then bites his lip. "All right," he says, soft. "All right," and goes.

By the time the fight is in fact over, it's clear that the suit did not escape unscathed.

It takes at least twice as long as usual for Bruce to work his way out of it. The liquid armor isn't an issue; it's the areas of solid plating, anywhere the suit has reinforced structural elements, that were squeezed, misshapen, by the tentacle's strength.

Bruce peels it apart a piece at a time, and then trips the releases on the undersuit and tugs it down to his waist. As frustrating as it is to have the suit fall short of what was demanded of it today, he does presumably have its assistance in dispersing and diffusing pressure to thank for the fact that the only damage to his torso is some particularly dark bruising.

"Ouch."

He looks up.

Clark's still suited up; and he's not meeting Bruce's eyes, but rather glancing down the line of his bare side, biting his lip. He reaches out, and Bruce strains furiously to avoid flinching from the gentle brush of his fingertips.

(Not because it's going to hurt. That's not the problem.)

"I'm fine," Bruce says.

"Right," Clark says quietly.

He doesn't move his hand. And then he looks up, and draws away abruptly, with a tight little smile that doesn't look right on his face.

"Right," he says, more loudly, a little unsteady. "Right. Sorry. I, uh. I'll—be upstairs."

Bruce waits until the sound of his footsteps has faded; not that he needs to keep his feet on the floor, within the bounds of the Hall, but Clark so often treats his powers as though they're reserved for the service of others—it rarely seems to occur to him to use them for his own convenience.

He looks down at the pieces of armor laid out on the worktable in front of him. He should take three-dimensional scans, calculate the force and torque required, begin brainstorming enhancements to make to future versions.

And then he strips the undersuit the rest of the way off, digs out a set of spare clothes to put on instead, and goes upstairs.

Clark changed, too, Bruce discovers. And he's—made tea.

He looks up from his mug and sees Bruce, and smiles.

(If only Bruce could convince himself the ache that sends through his chest were a result of the bruising.)

"Here," he says, and pushes the second mug toward Bruce, leaning over the counter to do it. He pauses for an instant; and then adds, tone wry, "It's no peaberry latte, but—"

 _I'd drink it even if it were_ , Bruce carefully doesn't say. "What a shame," he murmurs instead, and takes it, and listens to Clark laugh.


	6. but we might just glimpse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Superbat Week 2019 Day 6 prompt: "hologram". Because how could I resist, when canon deprived us? ;D

"All right, how's that?"

"78.8% improvement over last self-assessment," the ship says, and it might be wishful thinking, but Clark's pretty sure it sounds kind of—pleased. "Performing full diagnostic cycle," and then it pauses. "Interior atmosphere currently matches exterior atmosphere. Would you like to alter this setting?"

Clark glances up the wall. The ship's voice doesn't really seem to come from anywhere in particular, but he hasn't been able to talk himself out of looking at the ceiling when he wants to address it with extra directness. "Um, no, that setting's fine."

"Understood," the ship says. "Current structural configuration is optimized for navigation within the bounds of an atmosphere. Would you like to alter this setting?"

Oh. Must be part of the diagnostic cycle somehow, double-checking changes to its factory settings, so to speak. "Nah," Clark tells it, "not right now, thanks."

"Understood. A personalized interactive interface is available, but deactivated. Would you like to activate now?"

Clark blinks. "A personalized—you mean Jor-El? You've—you stored a copy of the—"

"The personalized interactive interface on file is not associated with that identifier," the ship says, a little apologetic.

Clark frowns, absent. There had been Jor-El. And then Clark had taken the data stick, and Jor-El's program, his whole—self-representation, had gone with it. After that, every time Clark's interacted with the ship, it's used what he's been considering its default: the steady pleasant female voice he's gotten used to. He didn't think there were any other options—though of course it hadn't really occurred to him to check.

"When was this personalized interactive interface last activated?" he asks, curious.

He's expecting some mindbogglingly enormous number, a usage that dates to whenever it was the ship first came to rest on Earth.

But the ship is quiet for a moment, and then says, "It was last activated two years, four months, and one week ago, by this world's system of reckoning."

Clark swallows, and wets his lips. He doesn't have to do the math. "While I was dead."

The ship is silent.

Clark reaches up and rubs at the nape of his neck. While he was dead—it must have been Bruce. Right? Clark's pretty sure he hadn't just hauled Clark's body into the genesis chamber and made a wish; that's not exactly Bruce's style. He must have made some kind of—evaluation, or something. He must have wanted to assess his options, to try to decide which method might have the best chance of success. And he hadn't known much about the genesis chamber, the fluid. Not as much as he'd have wanted to know.

He must have asked the ship about it. And apparently he made use of the ship's holographic projection capabilities while he was at it.

"And this personalized interactive interface you have on file," Clark says slowly. "When was it—developed? Is it part of your standard database?"

"The personalized interactive interface on file is not part of the standard database," the ship says. "It was first synthesized two years, nine months, and three days ago."

Clark closes his eyes, flattens his palms against the wall. He couldn't begin to guess why, there's—there's no reason for it, he doesn't have any evidence that suggests it; but the nape of his neck is prickling, his stomach buzzing unsteadily, a half-formed hunch creeping over him inexorably.

"Ship," he hears himself say, "please activate the personalized interactive interface."

He hears a soft hum, the same fuzzy-edged sound he'd picked up whenever Jor-El had been active. And then he turns around, and faces—

—himself.

Jesus Christ.

He stares at it. The other him looks back attentively.

And he's—it really is him. In a button-down and jeans, walking boots; his hair, his eyes, everything. And no glasses; it's _Clark_ , not Clark Kent. Except, Clark thinks half-hysterically, the button-down's light blue, striped—not plaid. Silly mistake to make.

"Ship, are there internal sensor records of the day this interface was synthesized?"

And he should have been expecting it, the whole point of the interface is for it to talk to him instead of the AI. But it's weird as hell, no two ways about it, for a mirror-image of his own mouth to open—for a mild obliging version of _his own voice_ to say, "Yes, there are."

Clark swallows. "Please play back—let's say starting three minutes before creation and archival of the interface's data files."

"Initiating playback," the holographic Clark agrees, with—god, with _precisely_ the polite little one-half-of-the-mouth smile Clark would've put on his face—had, ten thousand times, back when he was waiting tables in roadside diners. Jesus.

And then the floor moves. The sensor display is, of course, a three-dimensional reconstruction, figures shaped out of the little tesselated metallic pieces the ship is made out of. Like statues, like a museum diorama. One of them is Clark, the—the sensor-recorded version of the holographic interface projection, Clark realizes dimly.

And the other one is Bruce.

It takes Clark a moment to realize the playback is running. It doesn't look like it at first. They're—just standing there. But the gleaming monochromatic figure of Bruce is moving after all: breathing. Breathing, slow, carefully controlled; and looking at the figure of the projected Clark, in utter silence.

Clark swallows. "Play back," he amends quietly, "starting—six minutes before creation and archival of the interface's data files."

The other Bruce and the other Clark blur, dissolve into swarms of shifting pieces, reform: Clark is gone, and Bruce has moved, kneeling over some kind of equipment, or maybe a physical control interface of some kind he managed to talk the ship into constructing for him.

"—must be some way you can interact more directly with your own interior," Bruce is sniping, in the bitten-off pissy way he gets when something's not working the way he wants it to and he doesn't know why. "Or at least _point_ to whatever it is I'm doing wrong, for Christ's sake."

"Standard functions include a personalized interactive interface," the ship agrees, mild. "However, no fully-modeled interface is synthesized and capable of interaction at this time."

The figure of Bruce glances up; Clark feels a brief dim urge to laugh, learning he's never been alone in thinking of the ship's presence as somehow inexplicably lodged in the ceiling. "Fully-modeled," Bruce repeats. "What do you require in order to generate a model?"

"Full-body scans of familiar individuals will suffice," the ship informs him, "in the case of data loss or other damage affecting default interface files."

Oh, god. God, Clark thinks, he didn't—he didn't even know it would be—

"Do you possess sufficient scans of any familiar individuals at this time?" Bruce asks, already looking down again at whatever it is he's got his hands on. "Or, secondary to preceding inquiry, am I categorized as a familiar individual?"

"Yes, sufficient scans are available," the ship replies.

"Well, that'll save some time," Bruce murmurs under his breath.

Clark puts a hand over his eyes. Jesus.

"Synthesize, if possible, and activate the resulting interface when you're done," Bruce is continuing, at a conversational volume, and Clark has to drop his hand, has to see what happens next. Bruce is—he isn't even looking. He doesn't see the figure of Clark forming behind him, shimmering into being, coalescing.

"Active," says—says _Clark's_ voice; and Bruce goes utterly still. Turns his head, slow—toward where Clark is standing in the present, giving Clark a perfect view of the relentless unreadable expressionlessness of his face.

And then he turns for real. Comes up off his knees, and faces Clark's image fully.

He's staring. He's just—he keeps staring, like his gaze is nailed there, helplessly intent.

"Is it possible to make superficial amendments to the synthesized image?" he asks, after a long moment, very levelly.

"Yes," the Clark interface says, blandly cooperative. "What would you like to amend?"

"The—" Bruce's voice is abruptly husky, catching in his throat; he has to stop and clear it. Clark lets his eyes fall shut. Fuck, he—he knows, suddenly, what Bruce is about to say. "The shirt."

"The patterning as shown is appropriate," Clark hears himself say mildly.

"It is," Bruce agrees, very softly. "Can it be rendered as—" He stops again, and Clark can't not look: Bruce is lifting one steady hand, and he plucks at the dress shirt he's wearing. "Like this. Pinstripes." He swallows, throat moving visibly; his gaze drops, and then is lifted again. He's looking at the Clark interface, its face. Its eyes.

And the sensor data is being rendered for Clark in a single color, the cool metallic shade of the ship's interior. But the holographic interfaces—they're full-color.

"Blue," Bruce murmurs.

"Rendering now," the Clark interface allows, unbothered, unmoved. God, Clark wants to _punch_ it for just—for fucking standing there, shirt rippling visibly as it's redrawn by the system, with that pleasant little smile on its face. For not understanding what's happening, for not caring. Because of course the way Bruce is looking at it means nothing to it.

It's a perfect copy of Clark in every physical and visual respect—how could it not be, when it's based off readings taken by the ship's internal sensors, at an impossible level of detail?

It's perfect, except for the one thing that makes it a blatantly incompetent duplicate. Because Clark and Bruce have hated each other; they've fought with each other, they've circled each other warily, they've made tentative overtures and trusted each other with their lives and stumbled closer and closer without even meaning to. But Clark has never—Clark has never _not cared_ about Bruce. Even when he resented Bruce, even when he thought Bruce was a killer, a billionaire psychopath who needed to be stopped, he'd been hung up on it. He hadn't been able to stop chasing it, had argued with Bruce and followed him around and landed in front of his car.

There's no universe he can conceive of where he'd ever be capable of standing in front of Bruce like this with that look on his face—where he'd watch Bruce stare and shiver and clench his jaw, and not— _do_ something.

God. And Bruce had used it for months. Had worked away on the ship, preparing it and examining it, determining what he was going to need from it in order to bring the real Clark back to life—with this thing beside him, Clark's face right there every time he turned around.

Jesus, Clark thinks dimly, throat aching. Jesus Christ.

"Halt playback."

He goes to the Hall, later.

He doesn't have to. He doesn't—he doesn't even really mean to. He just can't stop thinking about it, that's all. He can't stop thinking about it, and—

And he wants to see Bruce.

So he goes.

Bruce is in his workroom, because of course he is. He doesn't look up, when Clark comes in; he hardly ever does. Clark usually just—starts talking.

But today, he's thinking about his own face, his own voice; about Bruce looking at him, listening to him, all that time while he'd been gone. And his throat closes up on him, and even if it hadn't he wouldn't know what the hell to say.

He stands there, silent. After maybe a minute, Bruce glances up, one eyebrow raised. And then he looks a little more closely, more searchingly, at Clark's face, and sets down the tools in his hands.

"Clark," he says, almost gentle. "Something wrong?"

"No," Clark manages to tell him. "No, I—sorry. Sorry, I just—"

He grinds helplessly to a halt, shakes his head and strides around the worktable until he can clasp Bruce's shoulders, wrap a hand around the nape of Bruce's neck.

"I'm not going anywhere. All right? Not again. I just—wanted to tell you that."

And Bruce moved with him, caught Clark's forearms in his hands—is staring at him, now, dark-eyed and unreadable. "You can't promise me that," he says, low and impeccably even.

Clark bites his lip, feels the old familiar urge to shout Bruce down; except of course Bruce is frustratingly right. There aren't any guarantees, not for them.

"Well," he amends, quiet, "if I do, then—then you'll just have to bring me back again." He pauses, and ducks his head. "I promise to try not to throw you into a car next time around."

Bruce is silent for a moment that feels longer than it probably is; and the look on his face hasn't changed, but something about it feels an inch from breaking Clark's heart anyway. "I'll bear that in mind," he says at last. And then, softer, suddenly uneven: "I would anyway. You have to know that. No matter what you did to me for it—"

Clark closes his eyes. "I do know," he agrees, and tips their foreheads together before Bruce can do something stupid like jerk away or tell Clark to punch him again, or god knows what else. "I do know that."

(It doesn't feel right, to kiss Bruce just then—like it's a thank-you, like he thinks he owes Bruce something. They've never quite managed to talk about it, about why they don't just—because Bruce feels it too, this thing that overwhelms them sometimes: the way the air gets still and heavy around them, the way they can't look away from each other. Clark knows he does.

But right now they're busy talking about something else, and it just—it's not the moment.

No matter how much Clark wishes it were.)


	7. all we hoped to find

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Superbat Week 2019 Day 7 prompt: "dream/nightmare". This one got long, because of course it takes me twice as many words to end something as to start it. /o\ ALSO IT JUST KIND OF DISSOLVES INTO A PILE OF FLUFF. SORRY ABOUT THAT, EVERYONE. ♥

The restaurant is busy, bustling; but there's no line, no wait. A table for two is free.

Of course it is.

Bruce smiles at the hostess and seats himself. He supposes perhaps he ought to be surprised that the food isn't already waiting, steaming away—but then he's always enjoyed a span of pleasant anticipation, delayed gratification.

He sits there and listens to the sounds of it all, people going about their days, talking, laughing, enjoying their time together. He breathes in the smell, warmth and spice and _food_ , and his stomach growls just a little, because it's always more satisfying to eat when you're _really_ hungry. He looks out the wide bay windows toward the street, the city: early afternoon, a bright clear day, distant glint of sunlight on water between the buildings.

And just as the helpless gratitude is swelling to a crescendo within him—that's when Clark arrives.

That, too, feels inevitably choreographed. He looks up, and Clark is there, just striding through the door—their eyes meet. But then Bruce should have expected as much.

Clark is in civilian clothing, but he isn't wearing his glasses; then again, it's not as though he needs them here. And he looks harried, urgent. But Bruce supposes that isn't a surprise. A pleasure, certainly, to see Clark happy and relaxed, comfortable. But a greater pleasure still to see it happen—to help it along. And the greatest self-indulgence of all, to cast himself in the role of catalyst: for Clark to arrive here out of sorts, and then come and sit and spend time with Bruce, and be the gladder for it—

Bruce closes his eyes.

It's all right, here. Isn't it? This once, it must be all right.

"Bruce," Clark says.

Bruce opens his eyes, and looks up, and smiles.

"Bruce, listen, this is—"

"Clark," Bruce replies, a deliberate interjection—to slow Clark down, distract him. "There you are."

Clark blinks down at him, hesitating. "You—you were expecting me?"

"Of course," Bruce says. "Come on, sit down."

"I—" Clark says, and then stops, bites his lip and shakes his head. "No, wait. Bruce, you don't understand—"

"So sit down, and tell me," Bruce says, mild, reasonable. "Our food should be here any minute."

"I haven't ordered," Clark points out—but then that's very like him, isn't it? Assuming responsibility, always; even under circumstances entirely beyond his control.

"It's all right, it's taken care of," Bruce says, and gestures again to the chair, raising an eyebrow.

Clark hovers there for another moment, indecisive, and then does sit at last. "Bruce," he says again, and then—perfect timing, Bruce thinks, unjustly amused; because, after all, of course it is—their food arrives.

Plate after plate, dish after dish. The lone waiter doesn't have enough hands to have carried it all, and yet there it is anyway. Perfectly prepared, steaming hot, just as Bruce remembers it: the scallion pancakes, crisp and flaky; the vegetable dumplings, neat little triangles, still crackling a little with fry-grease; half a dozen house specialties. Two Thai iced teas, the deep smoky orange at the base of the glass, the soft gradient shading to pure cream at the top. Like Jupiter, Bruce had always thought as a child—and then he'd enthusiastically reconstructed the Great Red Spot whenever he stirred it.

Clark seems startled by the selection. But then that fits as well as anything else. Bruce has always gotten a—a bit of a jolt, a prickle of the skin and a clench somewhere in the chest, in discerning that Clark has been surprised by him. Has discovered something new about him; has learned him, just a little bit better than before. He'd never been able to decide whether it was a pleasant sensation or an unpleasant one, unable to pick apart the morass of guilt and dismay, gratification and wistful desperation.

But apparently his subconscious is all for it.

"Bruce," Clark says slowly, "where are we?"

"A restaurant," Bruce murmurs, bland and guileless.

Clark gives him a flat look; but his mouth has started to slant despite itself.

"Try something," Bruce urges him. "What are you in the mood for?" He tilts his head, surveys the selection. "That one—drunken noodle. They always did fantastic drunken noodle here."

Clark stares at him for a long moment. And Bruce has no idea what it is he's looking for, but whatever it is, he must find it; because he picks up a pair of chopsticks that may or may not have been there a minute ago, and obediently grasps a noodle.

Bruce knows exactly what he must be tasting, of course, and grins when Clark's expression reflects the subtle burn that must be beginning in the back of his throat.

"Hot," Clark manages after a second, blinking furiously—but then he laughs. "It's good," he says, and pinches up a couple more noodles. "It's—it _is_ fantastic, Bruce. This is delicious."

"It is," Bruce agrees, even though he hasn't eaten any of it himself. He knows it is. He remembers.

"Seriously, where are we?"

Bruce looks away.

He wishes he could step outside and read it off the sign. But he suspects that if he tried, he'd only see neon and wishful thinking; shapes that are almost letters, half-formed and taunting.

"I don't know," he admits. "I was—still young, the last time I came here. It's closed now. It has been for at least thirty years. But I still think about the food, sometimes." It's all right to say it. Why wouldn't it be? In here—it must be all right. "I've thought about what it would be like to take you to dinner here."

He doesn't look up. He can't make himself. He's—he's allowed to fail at things in here, too, he tells himself.

He picks up his own chopsticks, traps a vegetable dumpling between them and bites in; a tautological thought, of course, but: it's just as good as he remembers. It was—

It was the only way Mom had been able to get him to eat vegetables at all, for a few years.

His free hand is resting slack against the edge of the table.

And then, all at once, it's covered—held.

"I'm honored," Clark says quietly. "And I'm—I'm glad to have the chance, right now."

Bruce risks a glance. Clark is watching him, steady, soft-eyed; and he smiles a little, when Bruce meets his eyes, and doesn't let go of Bruce's hand.

It's a wonderful meal.

Whatever it was Clark wanted to say, he's apparently willing to set it aside—or, Bruce acknowledges, it's entirely possible that an urgent topic of discussion never existed in the first place; just a convenient hook for the scenario.

It was the right time for a late lunch when Bruce sat down, when Clark came in. And they do dine at their leisure, of course. In here, there's no reason to do anything else. Bruce experiences a progressive feeling of fullness, intense satisfaction with the food. And yet there's always just enough room for one more bite, each of them able to sample a bit of every dish without having to beg off.

Bruce pays. He can't help but chuckle, when the opportunity is presented to him—because the check is brought straight to him, and somehow all he needs to do is sign it, no opening permitted for Clark to even think about pre-empting him. Because apparently that's part of the appeal: being allowed to take care of the bill, being allowed to assert that he— _provided_ this to Clark, is something he wants more than he wants there to be no bill at all. Christ.

And then when they step outside at last, somehow the sun is setting.

Bruce angles a glance up at the suspiciously perfect sky: it had been clear, before, but there are just enough clouds now to catch the light, gold and pink and red flooding from horizon to horizon, brilliant.

Clark looks at it too—laughs, though Bruce isn't entirely sure why, and shakes his head. And then he glances at Bruce, and says, "I saw that. Don't think I didn't."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Bruce murmurs, airy, and ruthlessly ignores the sudden ache in his chest; because, Christ, he's that desperate? Even here, _here_ , somehow it's not enough to be permitted to spend his money on Clark—he insists on Clark giving him shit for it, too.

"I'm going to start shoving twenties in your utility belt again," Clark says. "Just so you're aware."

But he's smiling.

And Bruce allows that smile to light him up with helpless warmth; to tip him full, overflowing; doesn't turn away from it or ignore it. He doesn't have to. He _doesn't have to_.

He swallows, and braces himself. It doesn't matter. It's all right. He can—he can do whatever he wants, and it will never matter.

So he smiles back, just a little, and offers Clark an elbow.

And Clark looks at him for a long moment, and takes it: curls his hand into the crook of it, and lets Bruce lead him off toward the waterfront.

It doesn't take as long as it should for them to reach it, of course. The buildings are solid enough, plausible; the names of the streets are all in the right order.

But it still isn't more than ten minutes before they're standing on the boardwalk at the edge of the bay. Bruce didn't know what to expect, whether a boundary might be imposed on the size of this place—whether they'd look out and see nothing but endless sparkling water.

But Metropolis is there after all on the other side, bright and clean and gleaming. West, which Bruce had always thought appropriate: the light lingers there longer than it does in Gotham, at day's end. But of course it's more appropriate still since Clark took up residence there, almost painfully so—that the sun leaves Gotham for Metropolis, settles to rest there when at last its work is done.

It's Clark who tugs Bruce down to sit at the edge of the boardwalk; their feet don't reach the water, of course, but Bruce feels like a kid anyway, like he's one step away from stripping off his shoes and socks, rolling his slacks up to the knee and going wading.

And—of course—Clark still hasn't let go of Bruce's arm.

Bruce bites the inside of his cheek. Mortifying. Mortifying to be so transparent to _himself_ , even if it will never matter—

"Bruce," Clark says quietly.

Bruce looks at him.

He's gazing out across the water toward Metropolis; he looks thoughtful, intent, a little tired.

"Bruce," he says again, almost gently. "This isn't real."

Bruce laughs.

He doesn't mean to, but he can't help it. It feels so pointedly on-the-nose, that his own mind can't let him relax into this and just enjoy it, or at least not without forcing him to acknowledge the truth first. He laughs and shakes his head, smiling, and looks at Clark again—and this time Clark is looking back at him, eyebrows raised, surprised.

"Of course it isn't," Bruce says, warm, and reaches out—settles his fingers over the back of Clark's hand, still tucked in neatly at the bend of his opposite elbow. "Clark: listen."

Clark frowns at him. "Listen—for what?"

"Exactly," Bruce says. He tips his head back and closes his eyes, listens himself for the sheer satisfaction of knowing exactly what he isn't going to hear. "No sirens."

"No sirens," Clark repeats, in a tone of dawning understanding.

"No sirens," Bruce agrees. "No alarms, no screams. No gunshots. Nothing bad is happening to anyone; no one is getting hurt. Not here." He feels his mouth twist, wry. "Of course it isn't real," he says again, more softly. "This is all idealized—impossible. Some kind of constructed reality, and I've been placed inside. A dream. Or intended to be indistinguishable from one; but my dreams are never this kind to me."

Not something he'd say aloud, and certainly not to Clark's face—except this is neither. This is neither, and that's what makes it all right.

He opens his eyes again, absorbs the relentless blazing beauty of the sky overhead—which isn't dimming at all, only changing, as the sun drops lower still.

And then he tilts his head to the side, and looks at Clark again.

Such unbearable loveliness, no matter where he turns. Of course it isn't real.

"Soon," he adds, "you're going to come for me. The real you, that is," and Clark blinks, frowns just a little—opens his mouth, but Bruce doesn't slow down, doesn't give him an opening to interrupt. "You're going to come and break me out of wherever I am, whatever's holding me in here, and you're going to wake me up."

Clark bites his lip. He's still frowning: just a little, brows dipping down, concerned, sweetly intent. "Bruce," he says, very low.

"But not yet," Bruce murmurs.

He lifts his hand away from the back of Clark's—skims it up Clark's chest, the side of his throat; the barest briefest contact, until he reaches the line of Clark's jaw, settles his fingertips there.

Clark swallows. His eyes are wide, dark, endlessly blue.

"I wonder what it would be like," Bruce says, and it comes out light, only a little unsteady. "The food was delicious; the weather is beautiful. But all that is based on my experiences, my memories." He shifts his touch just a little, dares to angle his thumb to brush the corner of Clark's mouth. "This? I've kissed a lot of people—I've kissed you. But not like this. Not at the waterfront on a perfect day after buying you lunch, just because I want to. Would it be worth it to try, to see how my mind will choose to extrapolate? It won't be the same as the real thing." He pauses, and bites the inside of his cheek again. "But then," he adds, more softly, "I suppose I'll never know the difference—"

"God, shut _up_ ," Clark chokes out, loud and startling, and then he's—he's got Bruce's face in his hands, and their mouths are pressed together.

For all the suddenness of it, the rush, Clark's painfully tentative about the actual kissing: soft, terribly slow. Bruce was right, it isn't anything like the Iceberg Lounge, their frenzied haste—how excruciatingly conscious Bruce had been then of their audience, of the fact that time had been of the essence, that he was not permitted to experience it for his own sake but for the mission's; that it couldn't be allowed to mean anything.

But this—

Clark is so careful with him. That's—wrong, that's backwards. Bruce is, if anything, perpetually conscious of the need to be careful with _Clark_.

(—safe hands; impossible, _impossible_ , but the least he can do, when given the opportunity, is try—)

Bruce goes still.

Clark's hands are steady on his cheeks, thumbs smoothing along Bruce's cheekbones; gentle, soothing, like he expects Bruce to need it. He lingers only another moment, easing away with one last brush of lips to the corner of Bruce's mouth.

"Clark," Bruce says, hoarse.

Clark ducks his head, but doesn't move otherwise—doesn't let go. "Yeah," he says. "That's me."

Shit. Bruce squeezes his eyes shut. _Shit_.

The delicate balance they've achieved, carefully box-stepping around a mistake they could never unmake, has only been sustainable because Clark has never understood exactly how desperate Bruce is to make that mistake anyway. He's always known that. If Clark had any idea they weren't just near misses, close calls—he's generous, agonizingly so. He wouldn't perceive it as a mistake, to give Bruce things Bruce knows better than to ask for—

"I'm sorry," Clark is saying unevenly. "I was going to tell you, in the restaurant. But then you were—" He stops and swallows. "You wanted to have lunch with me. You looked so—happy. I didn't want it to end. I still don't. But I know that you don't—you don't want to do this."

Fuck.

"Clark—"

"This keeps happening," Clark barrels on. "I know you know what I'm talking about. We keep—we get so close to it, over and over, but we always back away. You let go, you send me away; or," he acknowledges, soft, "I talk myself out of it. I tell myself it's not the right time, that we need to talk about it. Maybe some of those times I was even right. But I never—I haven't pushed." He squeezes his eyes shut. "I should have, but I didn't want to. As long as I didn't ask, there was always a chance you'd say yes. But if I did ask and you said no—"

"Clark," Bruce says.

And Clark looks at him again, rubs his thumbs along either side of Bruce's jaw. "And I don't want to do it like this either," he says quietly. "Not in here. Not if it's just going to not count all over again." He swallows, and leans in—presses their temples together. "Bruce, please," he says into Bruce's ear, barely more than a whisper. "Wake up."

Bruce is extracted from the machine with minimal difficulty.

Clark had interfaced in a second pod alongside him; he wasn't under nearly as long, and his withdrawal procedure is even easier.

They don't talk about it. Not then, not that instant. They still need to lock down the facility, secure all the personnel inside of it and contact the appropriate authorities. But Bruce meets Clark's eyes over their twinned pods, coils of wiring and electrodes, and knows immediately that Clark remembers everything.

He's granted a grace period that extends to their return to the Hall afterward. He engages in his usual post-mission routine, well aware that Clark is familiar with it—will know where to find him, that he always takes his equipment to a workroom to evaluate its condition and make repairs, enhancements.

And, sure enough, it's five minutes tops before he hears footsteps approaching the doorway.

He'd assumed Clark refrained from using his powers within the Hall out of habit; because Clark didn't think of them like a matter of convenience, and consequently didn't treat them as such. But it occurs to him now that it's also a sort of courtesy. Clark could have appeared in front of him without any warning whatsoever, could have cornered him before he even knew what was happening.

Always, always, agonizingly generous—still, after everything, giving Bruce the chance to run.

Bruce doesn't take it.

"Bruce," Clark says.

And Bruce is ready, insofar as it's possible, for the touch of Clark's hand. He doesn't move out from under it. His heart is pounding.

He doesn't turn to face Clark; and Clark, unfailingly merciful, doesn't make him.

"The thing is," Clark adds quietly, "I thought you were—I don't know. I thought you weren't sure. That it didn't mean to you what it meant to me; that you thought it could, maybe, but you didn't know, didn't want to risk that it wouldn't. That you were trying to be careful. You're—you always try to be so careful with me."

Bruce closes his eyes.

"But in there, it was—" Clark stops; moves closer, a careful half-stride, not quite touching but the heat of him, his presence, inescapably _there_. "It was your idea of an impossible dream. Everyone in the city, in the _world_ , safe; food you'll never taste again, memories you can't have back. And—and _me_ ," and his voice breaks a little, gone high and thin with disbelief—with wonder. "You weren't surprised to see me at all. You'd figured out what it was already, that it was things you wanted, and you knew I'd be there." He huffs out something that isn't quite a laugh, practically against the nape of Bruce's neck. "And you didn't know it was me until I kissed you like that."

As if Bruce needs his nose rubbed in his error—

He must tense, shift his weight; something. Whatever it is that gives him away, Clark perceives it, and smooths his hands along Bruce's shoulders.

"No, no, that's—that's the best part of all. Don't you see it? You couldn't tell. With the city, you knew right away. Gotham as it is and Gotham the way you wish it were, they're different.

"But you don't want me different. You don't want me better-spoken or better-dressed, smarter or less embarrassing or more like you. You had the chance to change me, and you didn't touch a thing. I thought you were afraid that it would turn out I wasn't what you wanted after all—but you do. You _do_ want me. Bruce—"

Bruce discovers he's shaking his head, helpless, a little convulsive. He wants to open his mouth, to say something; but what's stuck in his tight throat right now is a hysterical laugh. Christ. Clark's right—and he hadn't even realized it, hadn't even understood exactly how profoundly he'd given himself away, just by doing nothing. Just by wanting Clark, and getting him.

"You think it's not a good idea," Clark murmurs in his ear. "You're hung up on—on something, though I'll be damned if I know what. But you're wrong. All right? You're wrong. Let me prove it to you. I'm—I'm not going anywhere, Bruce. And if I do, you promised not to give up on me. You promised to make sure I come back."

Bruce is going to fuck this up. Of course he is. He fucks up, and Clark pays the price for it. That's how this works. But—

But then there is another established pattern to consider. He thought it himself: Clark saves him.

Clark saves him, every time.

He turns around, fumbles with clumsy nerveless hands to find Clark's shoulders, his shirt-collar, his face. His eyes are open, but it doesn't really help; he feels disoriented, dizzy, half-blinded. "Clark," he croaks.

"Yeah," Clark says, with a breathtakingly annoying little quirk of his mouth. "That's me."

"Shut up," Bruce tells him, a deliberate echo in turn, and tugs him in; holds him there and tilts his face up and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, and hopes dimly that he never has to stop.


End file.
